A little stretch and sew

I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it before… but I really hated sewing with stretch material! Thankfully I’ve slowly gotten over that fear…and maybe stepping into the realm of mutual like…maybe even love.

Part of this fear was put into me by The Sewing Bee (funny how using an overlocker for the first time under timed conditions isn’t conducive to learning!) But The Sewing Bee also gave me the confidence to just give things ago. Feeling a little bit nostalgic I decided to put this lovely knit fabric from Girl Charlee to good use (Taufiq now has a habit of peering over my shoulder as I internet shop fabrics now he knows I quite like sewing menswear!) I decided to sew up this T-shirt from the last Sewing Bee book: Fashion with Fabric by the lovely Claire-Louise aka Thrifty Stitcher. I love Sewing Bee patterns- the diagrams are always clear, the layout makes sense and there are helpful tips which are transferable to all sorts of sewing. She’s genuinely a sewing maestro so you can’t really go wrong!

The T-shirt has a drop-shoulder and a tapered fit and really quick to put together. There’s only 5 pieces to it. Honestly the longest bit was probably tracing the pattern and learning how to thread my twin needle.

Taufiq was on standby waiting to try it on the second the last stitch was done and didn’t take it off all day afterwards, so it’s got the husband seal of approval. I did lengthen the t-shirt a bit and he turned up the sleeves (preferred to do that rather than shorten it). The cotton blend jersey knit was really easy to work with, it has a slightly heavier weight to it than the one I used for my peplum top, didn’t roll, cut easily and pressed really nicely- so all round a really good fabric to start with if you’re new to stretch fabric.

If that’s not enough to tempt you into sewing up a t-shirt yourself- the pattern, with instructions is available for free on Love Sewing Magazine’s website.

Love this post, another helpful one, thank you 🙂 Stretch fabric was another topic of conversation in our sewing class recently & this post gives me confidence that its not completely awful to sew with!!